Initializing relationships between devices in a network

ABSTRACT

A relationship initiation between devices in a network is described. According to one embodiment, persona information is exchanged between devices in a network. Based upon the persona information, a user of a device may initiate a relationship with another device.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of application Ser. No. 10/407,537,filed Apr. 8, 2003 now U.S. Pat. No. 7,478,126, which claims benefit ofU.S. Provisional Application No. 60/371,183, filed Apr. 8, 2002,incorporated herein by reference.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates generally to networked devices, and moreparticularly to the initiation of relationships between devices.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE/PERMISSION

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material,which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has noobjection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent documentor the patent disclosure as it appears in the Patent and TrademarkOffice patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyrightrights whatsoever. The following notice applies to the software and dataas described below and in the drawings hereto: Copyright© 2002, SonyElectronics, Inc., All Rights Reserved.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The Internet has created the ability for many new types of virtualcommunities. Online communities exist for all sorts of reasons,including; product reviews, shared interests, socialization and theselling or auctioning of goods and services to name a few. Theseservices are currently centralized, server-based services. Beingcentralized (e.g., hosted on a single server or group of servers) makesit easy for the service to poll the activity level and generate reportsor displays of the current community status and activity. In contrast, adecentralized service does not provide for a service to generate reportsand display decentralized information as with the centralized service.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Persona information is exchanged between devices in a network. Basedupon the persona information, a user of a device may initiate arelationship with another device.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates one embodiment of a peer-to-peer network environment;

FIG. 2 illustrates one embodiment of a method for initiating arelationship between devices on the network;

FIG. 3 illustrates one embodiment of a user interface;

FIG. 4 illustrates another embodiment of a method for initiatingrelationships between devices on the network;

FIG. 5 illustrates a computer system according to one embodiment of theinvention; and

FIG. 6 illustrates a relationship initialization software component.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

In the following detailed description of embodiments of the invention,reference is made to the accompanying drawings in which like referencesindicate similar elements, and in which is shown by way of illustrationspecific embodiments in which the invention may be practiced. Theseembodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilledin the art to practice the invention, and it is to be understood thatother embodiments may be utilized and that logical, mechanical,electrical, functional and other changes may be made without departingfrom the scope of the present invention. The following detaileddescription is, therefore, not to be taken in a limiting sense, and thescope of the present invention is defined only by the appended claims.

FIG. 1 illustrates one embodiment of a peer-to-peer network environment(100) that is layered on top of a standard network 40, such as aWide-Area Network (WAN) or a Local-Area Network (LAN). Each device nodeconnected to the network 40 may be logically coupled through the network40 to any of the other nodes on the network 40 to form the peer-to-peernetwork environment 100. Each node may correspond to one or morephysical devices. As illustrated, the peer-to-peer network environment100 includes device 5, device 10, device 15, device 20, device 25,device 30 and device 35. Each device is at least capable of performingpeer-to-peer communications with the other devices functioning as peersin the network environment 100. Peer-to-peer communications includes thesharing of computer resources and services by direct exchange betweenpeer devices (or indirectly though an intermediate peer device). Theseresources and services may include the exchange of information,processing cycles, cache storage and disk storage for files among otherexamples, although all of the resources and services are not required tobe present on each peer device. Therefore, each device 5, 10, 15, 20,25, 30 and 35 in the network 100 may initiate a peer-to-peercommunications session in the network environment 100.

Each device also has the capability of identifying devices it would liketo communicate or initiate a relationship with, to discover devicesentering and leaving the network environment 100 (discovery process) andto determine what communications protocol is being used in the networkenvironment 100. For example, communication between peer devices may bevia a wire and/or wireless protocol, such as TCP/IP, Bluetooth, 802.11xprotocols commonly referred to as WiFi (Wireless Fidelity) and WAP(Wireless Application Protocol), which are used to exchange data acrossmobile telephone networks, among other communication protocols wellknown in the art.

The devices 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 and 35 may include mobile devices suchas a personal digital assistance (PDA), a mobile phone, a portablecomputer, a pager and a portable music player (e.g., MP3 player), amongother devices. Alternatively, the devices 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 and 35may include typical non-mobile devices, such as a desktop computer, ahome entertainment system, a set-top box and a gaming system, amongother examples. An exemplary embodiment of a suitable device isdescribed below in conjunction with FIG. 5.

It will be appreciated that the peer-to-peer network environment 100illustrated in FIG. 1 does not limit the configuration of networks inwhich the embodiments of the invention may operate. For example, one ofskill will readily appreciate that a server may be coupled to thepeer-to-peer network to provide centralized services to the peerdevices. Furthermore, one of skill in the art will immediatelyunderstand that more than one peer-to-peer network environment may belayered on the same underlying network structure and that each peerdevice may participate in multiple peer-to-peer network environmentssimultaneously.

Each device 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 and 35 also includes relationshipinitiation software 50 that facilitates the creation, sharing, modifyingand deletion of persona information, as will be described. Personainformation may reflect the personality, behaviors, habits and personalinterests of a user of each device. For example, the persona informationfor a user of a device may include a set of attributes such as an artistlist, a song list, a favorite song list, a favorite artist list, ratingof users, comments on songs, an interest list (e.g., vegetarian, chessplayer, etc.), among other attributes that relate to the user. Those ofordinary skill in the art will recognize that numerous attributes may beused and the invention is not limited to only those described herein.

In one embodiment, persona information associated with a user of adevice is automatically collected. For example, a list of interests of auser of the device 5 may be automatically generated by recording the websites, the user visits, the music the user listens to, the films theuser watches, etc. The persona information may be stored as public andprivate persona information relating to the user of the device.

The relationship initiation software 50 on each device 5, 10, 15, 20,25, 30 and 35 also allows the user of each device to initiate arelationship and store persona information from one or more of the otherusers of the devices on the network, as will be described. For example,a user may seek to initiate a relationship with another user byinitiating a conversation (e.g., querying others for a restaurantrecommendation, initiating an instant messaging session, etc.), to sharedigital content of common interest (e.g., music, poetry, literature,films, pictures, etc.), etc. Furthermore, depending on the type ofrelationship that is generated between the users, a level of trust maybe built and visually displayed, as will be described.

It should also be understood that a relationship might be initiated by auser (e.g., a user determines whether to initiate an instant messagingsession with another user on another device) or automatically by adevice (e.g., a device automatically determines a musical piece to playbased on a favorite list of another user having a common interest inmusic).

FIG. 2 illustrates one embodiment of a method (200 and 201) executed bydevice 5 on the network 100 to initiate a relationship. In thisembodiment, each device on the network 100 may broadcast an overviewmessage to initiate a relationship between the devices, as will bedescribed. In an alternative embodiment, the device may broadcast aquery message onto the network 100 to each device. The query message mayinclude a question, such as, “Does anyone recommend any nice vegetarianrestaurants in San Francisco?” Upon receiving a reply, the originatingdevice may weigh the reply, as will be described.

Although the description describes embodiments of the invention that usemessages to communicate between the devices, it should be understoodthat messages as described herein may include numerous messageconfigurations based on the communication protocol being used.Furthermore, those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize thatother mechanisms may be used to initiate relationships that do notinclude messages and are not described herein as to not obscure thedescription.

A dotted line 202 in FIG. 2 separates the processing of device 5 anddevice 10. The method 201 illustrated for device 5 will transmit theinitial overview message and the method 200 illustrated for device 10shows an example of a process flow to receive the overview message.However, it should be understood that any of the devices might send theinitial overview message or receive an overview message from anotherdevice.

At block 205, the device 5 generates an overview message. The overviewmessage may include a subset or all of the persona informationassociated with the user of device 5. For example, the overview messagemay include personal interests of the user of device 5, such as being achess player. The overview message may also include a query to the otherusers on the network. For example, the overview message may ask theother users on the network “Does anyone know of any nice vegetarianrestaurants in San Francisco?”

At block 208, the device 5 broadcasts the overview message to the otherdevices on the network.

At block 210, the device 10 on the network 100 receives the overviewmessage. Alternatively, it is understood that the overview message maybe received by any one of the devices on the network 100. At block 215,the device 10 also analyzes the overview message. For example, thedevice 10 may analyze the overview message to determine areas of commoninterest with the user of device 5. The device 10 may also analyze themessage to determine whether to answer the query. Based on theinformation included in the message the user of device 10 may decide toreply.

At block 217, the device 10 determines whether to reply to the overviewmessage. If the device 10 determines not to reply to the overviewmessage, control passes to block 218. If the device 10 determines toreply to the overview message, control passes to block 220.

At block 218, the device 10 does nothing in response to receiving theoverview message and/or query. The device may automatically determinenot to reply to the overview message based on the persona informationreceived in the overview message. Alternatively, the user of the device10 may not have an answer for the query.

At block 220, the device 10 generates a reply message and automaticallyreplies directly to the device 5. The device 10 may reply directly withthe device 5 based on an identifier included in the overview messagereceived from the device 5. For example, the identifier may be an IPaddress associated with the device 5 that identifies the device 5 on thenetwork 100. The reply message may include the subset or entire personainformation of the user of device 10. For example, the reply message mayinclude the personal interest of the user of device 10.

The device 10 may also decide to store in the reply message, asuggestion of another interest it assumes the user of device 5 mightconsider interesting based on the persona information received fromdevice 5. For example, device 10 may assume that device 5 might enjoy agame of Checkers based on device 5's interest in the game of Chess, andinclude this suggestion in the reply message to device 5.

The reply message may also include an answer to the query. For example,the user of device 10 may suggest a vegetarian restaurant, or the device10 may include in the reply message a copy of a favorite vegetarianrestaurant list of the user of device 10.

In one embodiment, the device 10 may initiate a relationship directlywith device 5 upon analyzing the overview message at block 215. Forexample, the user of device 10 may include in the reply message anindication to initiate a relationship to play a game of Chess.

At block 225, the device 5 receives the reply message from the device10.

At block 230, the device 5 stores the persona information of device 10into a data store (e.g., a database). The data store may be on device 5or on another remote device. In this way, the device 5 may contain thepersona information from one or more devices on the network. If thepersona information is stored on another remote device, the user ofdevice 5 may link to the data on the other device.

At block 240, the device 5 analyzes the persona information of device10. For example, device 5 may automatically determine a shared interestof the user of device 5 and device 10. Device 5 may presentautomatically the shared interest to the user via a user interface onthe device 5.

In one embodiment, the device 5 generates a visualization of one or moreof the devices on the network that share a common interest with thedevice 5. That is, the device 5 may generate a visualization of a subcommunity of the entire network of devices at variable resolutions andtime dynamics. The user interface may show network relationships amongthe various devices.

FIG. 3 illustrates one embodiment of a user interface 300 to display thestate and activities of devices on the network 100. User interface 300includes a classic jazz indicia 305 and a Chess indicia 310. The classicjazz indicia 305 includes a representation of the device 10 and device20 that share the same interest of classic jazz with the user of device5. The Chess indicia 310 includes a representation of the device 10 thatshares the same interest of Chess with the user of device 5. Therepresentations may be displayed with various color codes to indicateexpertise or level of trust. For example, the user interface 300 mayillustrate device 10 having the color red, in the classic jazz indicia305, which may indicate the user of the associated device 10 is anardent listener of classic jazz. The user interface 300 may illustratedevice 10 having the color green in the Chess indicia 310 to indicate anovice Chess player. Also, various visual color and patterns may be usedto indicate a level of trust between the users of the devices. Forexample, the user interface 300 may illustrate the device 10 in theclassic jazz indicia 305 with vertical parallel lines to indicate a highlevel of trust when exchanging music files. This trust level may be usedto give more weight to a user's answers to questions, to determine whento initiate a relationship, or when to reply to an overview message.

It should be understood that the user interface 300 might include anynumber of possible visualizations based on the attributes of the personainformation to represent similar relationships between users of deviceson the network. A few examples are content or network maps, an animatedgrid of pixels that change color and blink rates depending on contenttype and activity, and status displays that show the users, exchangevolume and appropriateness of content accessible from the peer deviceson the network 100, among other examples.

The visualization may be interactive, allowing the individual to drilldown on areas of interest to learn more and possibly initiate newrelationships. Application software on each device may also includetransactional tools that enable the sharing, playing and purchasing ofnetwork content.

At block 250, the device 5 initiates a relationship with one or moredevices on the network. For example, the user may initiate a fileswapping protocol to share music, literature, poetry, a film, etc. Inanother example, the user may initiate a conversation session with theone or more devices of the network via email, instant messaging, a chatroom, etc. The user may also initiate a gaming session to, for example,play a game of Chess with a user having the same skill level on thenetwork 100.

It should be understood that each device on the network 100 may posttheir persona information for other devices on the network to analyzeand possibly initiate a relationship based on the persona information,as described in one embodiment above. The device 10 may alsoautomatically include in the reply message a description of the currentactivity on the device 10. For example, the device 10 may indicate theuser of device 10 is currently listening to classic jazz or playing agame of Chess against the device 10. Again, upon receiving the replymessage, the user of device 10 may determine to initiate a relationshipbased on the current activity of a device on the network.

FIG. 4 illustrates another embodiment of a process flow (400) forinitiating relationships between devices on the network 100. In thisembodiment, an originating device generates a polling query message tobe passed to each device on the network 100 to initiate a relationshipbetween one or more devices, as will be described. The process flow 400is divided by a dotted line 402 to show the separation of the processingof device 5 and device 10 on the network 100.

At block 405, the device 5 generates a polling query message to beshared with each device on the network 100. The polling query messagemay include a subset or the entire persona information of the device 5,such as being a Chess player.

At block 410, the device 5 transmits the polling query message to device10 on the network 100.

At block 415, the device 10 receives the polling query message.

At block 420, the device 10 analyzes the polling query message. Forexample, the device 10 may analyze the polling query message todetermine areas of common interest with the user of device 5.

At block 425, the device 10 determines whether to indicate a willingnessto initiate a relationship with the device 5. If, at block 425, thedevice 10 chooses not to indicate a willingness to initiate arelationship with device 5, control passes to block 430. If, at block425, the device 10 chooses to indicate a willingness to initiate arelationship with device 5, control passes to block 435.

At block 430, the device 10 does nothing in response to receiving thepolling query message from the other devices. That is, the device 10ignores the polling query message and forwards the message to the nextdevice on the network.

At block 435, the device 10 stores a subset or all of the personainformation for the user of the device 10 into the polling querymessage.

At block 440, the device 10 determines which device is next to receivethe polling query message from device 10. If there is another device onthe network 100 to receive the polling query message from the device 10,control is passed to block 445. If there is not another device on thenetwork 100 to receive the polling query message, control passes toblock 450.

At block 445, the device 10 determines whether to transmit the pollingquery message to a device that has not received the polling querymessage from device 5. It should be understood that, in one embodiment,when the next device (e.g., device 15) receives the polling querymessage it would follow a similar process flow as started at block 415,as illustrated by dotted line 447. In this way, each device may storepersona information into the polling query message.

At block 450, the device 10 transmits the polling query message to theoriginating device 5.

At block 455, the device 5 receives the polling query message.

At block 460, the device 5 stores the persona information from the oneor more devices into a data store (e.g., database). That data store maybe on device 5 or on another remote device. In this way, the device 5may contain the persona information from one or more devices on thenetwork 100.

At block 465, the device 5 analyzes the returned polling query message.For example, the device 5 may build a model of the current communityactivity and areas of shared interest, as described above.

At block 475, the device 5 initiates and sends a negotiation querymessage to one or more devices that indicate a willingness to initiate arelationship. The relationship may be based on shared interest betweenthe users of the devices. For example, the user of device 5 may chose toinitiate a relationship with device 10 to play a Chess game usingapplication software on each device.

It should be appreciated that the process flow 400 may be able tocommunicate with devices a further distance than which may be achievedvia the broadcast process flow 200. Because a message is passed to eachdevice, one device may be able to pass the message outside the localarea network of the originating device. For example, an intermediatedevice in the path may be a gateway type device that connects two localarea networks.

FIG. 6 illustrates components of the relationship initiation software 50to be performed by a processor. The relationship initiation software 50includes a message generation component 610, a message analyzercomponent 620, a relationship initialization component 630, a messagetransmission component 640, a message retrieval component 650, a userinterface component 660 and a data store component 670.

The message generation component 610 includes software instructions togenerate messages (e.g., an overview message, a reply message, a pollingquery message, a negotiation message, etc.), as described above forFIGS. 2 and 4. The message analyzer component 620 includes softwareinstructions to analyze the messages (e.g., an overview message, a replymessage, a polling query message, a negotiation message, etc.) exchangedbetween the devices on the network 100, as described above for FIGS. 2and 4. The relationship initialization component 630 includes softwareinstructions to initiate a relationship between devices on the network100, as described above in FIGS. 2 and 4. The message transmissioncomponent 640 includes software instructions to transmit a message froma device on the network 100, as described for FIG. 5. The messageretrieval component 650 includes software instructions to receive amessage from a device on the network 100, as described for FIG. 5. Theuser interface component 660 includes software instructions to generatea visualization of the network 100, as described for FIG. 3. A datastore component 670 includes software instructions to store and retrievepersona information from a data store, as described for FIGS. 2, 4 and5.

One embodiment of a system suitable for use in the environments of FIG.1 is illustrated in FIG. 5. The system 540 includes a processor 550, amemory 555 and input/output capability 560 coupled to a system bus 565.The memory 555 is configured to store instructions which, when executedby the processor 550, perform the methods described herein. The memory555 may also store data for performing the method(s) described in FIGS.2 and 4. Input/output 560 provides for the delivery and display of thedata for performing the methods(s) described in FIGS. 2 and 4 orportions or representations thereof. Input/output 560 also encompassesvarious types of machine or computer-readable media, including any typeof storage device that is accessible by the processor 550. One of skillin the art will immediately recognize that the term “computer-readablemedium/media” or “machine-readable medium/media” further encompasses acarrier wave that encodes a data signal. It will also be appreciatedthat the computer is controlled by operating system software executingin memory 555. Input/output and related media 560 stores themachine/computer-executable instructions for the operating system andmethods of the present invention, as well as the data for performing themethods described in FIGS. 2 and 4. Input/output 560 may also includecomponents to transmit and receive a message to/from one or more deviceson the network 100 (e.g., via a network card, a modem and a fax card,among other examples).

The description of FIG. 5 is intended to provide an overview of computerhardware and various operating environments suitable for implementingthe invention, but is not intended to limit the applicable environments.It will be appreciated that the system 540 is one example of manypossible devices that have different architectures. A typical devicewill usually include at least a processor, a memory and a bus couplingthe memory to the processor. Such a configuration encompasses personalcomputer systems, network computers, television-based systems, such asWeb TVs or set-top boxes, handheld devices, such as cell phones andpersonal digital assistants, and similar devices. One of skill in theart will immediately appreciate that the invention can be practiced withother system configurations, including multiprocessor systems,minicomputers, mainframe computers and the like. The invention can alsobe practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks areperformed by remote processing devices that are linked through acommunications network.

It will be appreciated that more or fewer processes may be incorporatedinto the methods illustrated in FIGS. 2 and 4 without departing from thescope of the invention and that no particular order is implied by thearrangement of blocks shown and described herein. Describing the methodsby reference to a flow diagram enables one of ordinary skill in the artto develop such programs including such instructions to carry out themethods on suitably configured computers (the processor of the computerexecuting the instructions from computer-readable media, includingmemory). The computer-executable instructions may be written in acomputer programming language or may be embodied in firmware logic. Ifwritten in a programming language conforming to a recognized standard,such instructions can be executed on a variety of hardware platforms andfor interface to a variety of operating systems. In addition, thepresent invention is not described with reference to any particularprogramming language. It will be appreciated that a variety ofprogramming languages may be used to implement the teachings of theinvention as described herein. Furthermore, it is common in the art tospeak of software, in one form or another (e.g., program, procedure,process, application, module, logic, etc.), as taking an action orcausing a result. Such expressions are merely a shorthand way of sayingthat execution of the software by a computer causes the processor of thecomputer to perform an action or produce a result.

In addition to the typical software subsystems of a peer-to-peer device,to perform device discovery, identification and communications protocol,as described above, each device on the network 100 may includerelationship initialization software components.

A relationship initiation between devices in a network environment hasbeen described. It should be understood that each device on the network100 might share persona information. In this way, each device may alsogenerate a visualization of the community with a user interface oranalyze the network to determine whether to initiate a relationship withother devices having similar discovered interests. Although specificembodiments have been illustrated and described herein, it will beappreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that any arrangementthat is calculated to achieve the same purpose may be substituted forthe specific embodiments shown. This application is intended to coverany adaptations or variations of the present invention.

While the invention is not limited to any particular implementation, forthe sake of clarity a simplified method and system for initiatingrelationships between devices has been described. For example, those ofordinary skill within the art will appreciate that a device may includemultiple users. Each user of a single device has the capability to storeindividual persona information, which may be used to initiate arelationship with users of other devices on the network. Furthermore,the terminology used in this application with respect to “message” ismeant to include any protocol to communicate between devices. Therefore,it is manifestly intended that this invention be limited only by thefollowing claims and equivalents thereof.

1. A computerized method comprising: generating, by a first dataprocessing device associated with a first user in response to aselection by the first user of digital content, first personainformation that includes identifiers representing the first user'sselection of the digital content; generating a first polling querymessage that includes a subset of the first persona information;transmitting the first polling query message from the first dataprocessing device to a second data processing device; receiving a secondpolling query message that includes a first and second commonidentifier, wherein the first common identifier is an identifier commonto the first persona information and common to second personainformation that is associated with a second user of the second dataprocessing device, the second common identifier is an identifier commonto the first persona information and common to third persona informationthat is associated with a third user of a third data processing device;initiating a relationship between the first processing device and one ofthe second and the third processing devices based on the first andsecond common identifiers; receiving a third polling query message thatincludes the second persona information; correlating the identifiersincluded in the first persona information with the identifiers includedin the second persona information to identify a third common identifierbetween the first and second persona information; updating the thirdpolling query message with the third common identifier; and transmittingthe updated third polling query message to the third data processingdevice.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first common identifier isan identifier of a website which has been visited by the first or seconduser.
 3. The method of claim 1, further comprising: generating avisualization of the second processing device based on the secondpersona information.
 4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:displaying a visualization, by the first data processing device, of thefirst and second data processing devices relative to the first commonidentifier.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein initiating a relationshipincludes one of swapping an electronic file with the second processingdevice, initializing an instant messaging session with the second user,and initializing a gaming session with the second user.
 6. Anon-transitory machine-readable storage medium having executableinstructions o cause a data processing device to perform a method, themethod comprising: generating, by a first data processing deviceassociated with a first user in response to a selection by a first userof digital content, first persona information that includes identifiersrepresenting the first user's selection of the digital content;generating a first polling query message that includes a subset of thefirst persona information; transmitting the first polling query messagefrom the first data processing device to a second data processing devicevia the data communications network; receiving a second polling querymessage that includes a first and second common identifier, wherein thefirst common identifier is an identifier common to the first personainformation and common to second persona information that is associatedwith a second user of tile second data processing device, the secondcommon identifier is an identifier common to the first personainformation and common to third persona information that is associatedwith a third user of a third data processing device; initiating arelationship between the first processing device and one of the secondand the third processing devices based on the first and second commonidentifiers receiving a third polling query message that includes thesecond persona information; correlating the identifiers included in thefirst persona information with the identifiers included in the secondpersona information to identify a third common identifier between thefirst and second persona information; updating the third polling querymessage with the third common identifier; and transmitting the updatedthird polling query message to the third data processing device.
 7. Thenon-transitory machine readable storage medium of claim 6, wherein themethod further comprises: analyzing the persona information of the firstand second users for a common interest.
 8. The non-transitorymachine-readable storage medium of claim 6, wherein the method furthercomprises: generating a visualization of the second device based on thesecond persona information associated with the second user.
 9. Thenon-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 6, whereininitiating a relationship includes one of swapping an electronic filewith the second device, initializing an instant messaging session withthe second user, and initializing a gaming session with the second user.10. A system comprising: a plurality of data processing devices on adata communications network, wherein the plurality of data processingdevices are operable to identify which other user of the data processingdevices shares a common interest, and wherein, a first data processingdevice to generate first persona information in response to a selectionby a first user of digital content using the first data processingdevice, the first persona information including identifiers representingthe first user's selection of the digital content, to generate a pollingquery message that includes a subset of the first persona information,and to transmit the polling query message from the first data processingdevice to a second data processing device, the second data processingdevice to correlate the identifiers included in the first personainformation with identifiers included in second persona information toidentify a first common identifier between the first and second personainformation, wherein the second persona information is associated with asecond user of the second data processing device, and to update thepolling query message with the first common identifier and to transmitthe updated polling query message to at least a third data processingdevice, the third data processing device to correlate the identifiersincluded in the first persona information with identifiers included inthird persona information to identify a second common identifier betweenthe first and third persona information, wherein the third personainformation is associated with a third user of the third data processingdevice, and to further update the updated polling query message with thesecond common identifier and to communicate the further updated pollingquery message to the first data processing device, and wherein, thefirst data processing device to initiate a relationship between thefirst processing device and one of the second and third devices based onthe first and second common identifiers.
 11. A system according to claim10 wherein the first device to correlate the persona informationreceived in the further updated polling query message.
 12. A systemaccording to claim 11 wherein the correlating by the first deviceincludes visualizing the persona information via a user interface.
 13. Asystem according to claim 10 wherein the initiating a relationshipfurther includes one of performing a conversation over the network,swapping a content file over the network, and performing a gamingsession over the network between the first data processing device andthe second data processing device.
 14. A system according to claim 10wherein relationship initialization by the first data processing devicefurther causes a processor to correlate the persona information of thefirst and second users for a common interest.
 15. A system according toclaim 10 wherein relationship initialization by the first dataprocessing device further causes a processor, when initiating arelationship, to initiate an instant messaging session with the seconduser of the second device.